


(Not Quite) Caught Red Handed

by tisfan



Series: Tony Stark Bingo [15]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Tony Is Not Helping, Wong has a sense of humor, do not lick the science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 16:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15755370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: When Wong says Don’t TOUCH it, he means it. (Also, do not lick the archaeology.)





	(Not Quite) Caught Red Handed

**Author's Note:**

> Story LOOSELY based on a friend of mine’s adventure at an archaeologists house, where he did, in fact, OPEN the box labeled “mummified human hands”

Tony glanced at the box, did a quick check around the room to make sure Wong wasn’t standing around, disapproving of him. Wong did that, it was a bad habit of his.

Well, maybe not, because Tony was often worthy of disapproval, especially when he was in the Sanctuary.

Maybe not especially when he was in the Sanctuary, although he really thought he ought to be excused, because the Sanctuary was filled with inexplicable wondrous -- albeit dangerous -- stuff, and Tony had a bad habit of being utterly unable to keep his hands to himself.

The not keeping his hands to himself thing was pretty much approved-of behavior when it involved his incredible sexy boyfriend, but not so much when it came to examining items of rare and unspeakable power.

Which was why, Tony decided, this was _entirely Stephen’s fault_.

He really ought to know better by now.

He couldn’t invite Tony over for lunch and maybe a little snuggle time, and then have a magical emergency and _be gone_ when Tony got there, leaving him alone and wandering around the Sanctuary, being bored.

Tony bent over to examine the little brass plaque a little more closely.

_Order of Three; Left Hands. Severed, mummified._

Underneath that was a bright pink post-it note. _Do Not Touch_.

That was probably directed specifically at Tony, in someone’s misguided efforts to keep him away from things he wasn’t supposed to get into. Either that, or it was Wong’s idea of a joke.

The things that really, really weren’t supposed to be touched had some special wards or locks around them. Tony’d found that out the hard way more than once, as Stephen’s particular favorite trap on various items of power was transmorphing. Tony had spent more than one hour as a tortoise.

Which, as animals went, wasn’t so bad. Torts had nice protective shells that Tony could pull him head into and take a nap, and they were small and slow and low to the ground. And, like in the proverb, got there in the end.

Tony scowled. Surely, Stephen didn’t actually keep dead, severed, human remains in what looked remarkably like a humidor?

That was a joke?

Tony flipped open the lid.

It wasn’t a joke.

Not only did Stephen have dead, severed, human remains in a box, he had three of the fucking things.

One of them had a damn ring on its finger.

Because apparently Beyonce was a thing, and even back in the day, someone had to put a ring on it because they liked it.

The hands were wrinkled, brown, stiff, curled into claws and resting on a purple velvet pad.

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said. “I’ve seen this movie, and what you don’t do when in the presence of magical, dead, severed hands is say anything at all that starts with ‘I wish…’”

Tony continued to stare at the hands, perfectly preserved, obviously all left hands, and based on the size, either there were two men and one woman, or maybe two men and a child, and in either case, why was he looking in a box of _dead hands_?

“Honestly, in this particular circumstance,” Tony muttered, “I’m not sure what I expected to happen. Dead Dove, do not eat.”

Nothing dire happened. And Tony wasn’t currently crawling around on the floor looking for a nice ripe strawberry, either.

Maybe the hands weren’t dangerous, so much as just kinda yucky and weird. It was weird. Really, who kept severed hands in a box?

“Yes, Nigel, come here, old chap, you really must see these dead hands, I jolly well thing I’ll put them in a box and keep them in my living room,” Tony said, badly mimicking what an eighteenth century archeologist might have sounded like. Really, who did things like that?

Someone apparently did it, but _why_?

Order of Three… what was that, Tony wondered. Sounded like a badguy boy band if Tony knew anything about them; they were always like that. Something doom and gloomy and appropriately mysterious sounding.

Tony didn’t necessarily have an issue with Tide Pods, but he had, from time to time, wanted to poke things, just to see what they did. There were a few things that he wanted to lick and claim them (his boyfriend, for instance).

But he had no urge to touch these -- to shake a mummified hand? No thank you.

And certainly, while he was all for a little finger sucking from time to time, he had no desire to lick the archaeology.

Very gingerly, Tony put the lid back on the box.

Nothing happened.

That was both a relief and vaguely unsettling.

And one of these days, Tony was going to get in trouble for poking at Stephen’s things. Not that they were, completely, _Stephen’s_ things. The Sanctum was like the British Museum of weird and creepy artifacts.

Okay, so it already happened, but he’d get in _more_ trouble.

But, apparently, not today.

***

“So, what’s the deal with the creepy dead hands?” Tony asked, much, much later.

He and Stephen were laying, snuggled quite close in Stephen’s bed, the blankets kicked everywhere. Stephen was stretched out to the full extend of his long legs and arms, taking up much more than his fair share of space. Tony didn’t mind; for one thing, his boyfriend was flippin’ gorgeous, and Tony liked to curl up in a ball _anyway_.

“I beg your pardon?” Stephen’s arm made an abortive twitch. Tony suppressed a sigh; he hadn’t meant _Stephen’s_ hands.

“The ones in the box, marked Do Not Touch.”

Stephen coughed. “ _What_?”

“Down in the room off the entrance hall, on a little pedestal, in a cigar box?” Tony leaned up on his elbow, tracing a circle around Stephen’s bare chest. “Order of Three?”

“Tony, I have no idea what you’re talking about? What box?”

“Seriously, you’re going to make me drag you down there at oh-dark-thirty to show you some severed, mummified left hands?”

Stephen very carefully rolled his tongue over his teeth. “There’s _no room off the entrance hall_ , so I think very much that you might have to show this to me.”

Tony suddenly resented his inability to shut up. Groaning and grumbling, he rolled out of bed and fetched one of Stephen’s robes -- not the Cloak, of course, that thing still didn’t like him very much (or maybe it liked him too much, since it had a mild obsession with smacking his butt).

Tony also resented a little that he had to _get dressed_.

Stephen was decidedly not the sort of guy who put his pants on one leg at a time; he made a brief gesture, banged his wrists together in an X and then twisted one wrist and he was just… clothed.

Convenient. But sort of annoying at the same time.

On the plus side, when he felt like it, he could undress both of them in the same fashion, and there had been reason to appreciate that ability.

He tied the sash and trudged on bare feet down three flights of stairs. Stephen could have portalled them, and sometimes did, but Tony preferred to walk unless it was an emergency, and there was nothing urgent in looking at dead, severed, mummified left hands.

There…

… was no room off the entrance hall.

Tony blinked.

“What the hell, Strange?”

“Tony--”

Tony stood in front of a large tapestry, something that was heavy and huge and a little dusty, looked and smelled like it had been there for years. Decades. Centuries.

“It was right here, there was an open door, and--” Tony trailed off uncertainly. “I’m not imagining it.”

“I’m sure you’re not,” Stephen said, a faint smile touching his mouth. “The nicest thing about dealing with the unknowable is that you generally believe people who see or hear unexpected and inexplicable things. That being said, I don’t know where you went, or what you saw. Which is a little more worrisome.”

Tony scoffed. “I hate magic.”

Stephen just continued smiling, gently.

“With obvious exceptions, come on Stephen, you know that.”

“I do, actually,” Stephen said. “Come on, let’s start with the library. What do you remember--”

Tony went through the entire experience with as much detail and as little sarcasm as he could manage.

Wong was reading a thick tome, an apple on his desk, as they entered the library.

“Wong, do--” Stephen stuttered to a halt. “What… is that?”

Wong had a bright pink post-it on his tea cup. _Do not touch._

“A teacup,” Wong answered, his delivery flat and perfect.

“Did you-- play a _joke_? On Stark?”

Wong’s eyes widened. “Did he touch something he was not supposed to?”

Tony spread his hands in a _who, me_ gesture.

“I guess even he can be taught, eventually,” Wong said with satisfaction.

“What would happen if I _had_ touched it?”

“There would be four hands, instead of three,” Wong intoned.

Tony coughed, startled.

Stephen sighed and poked Wong’s teacup, rolling his eyes. A moment later, the pink note dissolved and stained his hands with a brilliant red. “Caught. Red handed. It’s an old trick.”

“You’re going to have to explain why you have three severed hands in a cigar case,” Tony told him.

Wong went back to his reading. “No. I don’t."


End file.
